How this Lincoln mum who was addicted to heroin for more than a decade finally turned her life around

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A Lincoln woman who suffered for over a decade with heroin addiction has opened up about her journey of recovery and how she is now hoping to use her own experiences to help change the lives of others.

Reagan Bescoby, 34, tried heroin for the first time when she was just sixteen - in what was the beginning of a vicious downward spiral that could have claimed her life.

"When I first tried it, I was young and naive and I didn't really have any idea about the effects," said Reagan, who has exhibited artworks in Lincoln this year which explore her experiences of life with the drug.

"I was depressed and I self-harmed.

"My boyfriend at the time introduced me to it. He told me that it would stop my depression and that it would get rid of the sadness I felt, that it was just like smoking a spliff.

"It just numbs you, and I liked that. I didn't know how to cope with how I felt. But when you're on heroin, the world around you is gone."

(Image: Chris Marsh)

Reagan's addition ended her relationship with her partner and she has not seen her own son since he was two years old.

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"I tried to commit suicide multiple times because I was just so broken. But I think this was the moment when I began to realise that I wanted more from my life.

"I want to make sure my boy knows how much the whole time I've been away from him I haven't stopped loving him, missing him and worrying about him. I just want him to be happy."

The death of a close friend in 2016 would eventually prove to be a turning point for Reagan and the beginning of her journey on the road to recovery.

"My friend, who I'd known for years, passed away and when I heard I was devastated. I couldn't believe it. I just sat there and thought about my life and something just clicked."

After distancing herself from her family for years, Reagan said that she finally found the courage to reach out and got back in contact.

"Once I had the courage, I told my mum everything and she cried. She was so supportive of me and came to both my art exhibitions. She has helped me loads, as have the rest of my family.

"I was so disappointed that I had distanced myself and at first I was scared of how they would react to me but I realised that I had no reason to be scared.

"They did everything they could to support me through my addiction. They always tried to get me to open up to them and pretended they didn't know what was happening even when they did. I distanced myself from them and I shouldn't have."

(Image: Chris Marsh)

Reagan has now been clean for three years and says that without services like the drug and alcohol charity Addaction, recovery might not have been possible.

"A massive part of my recovery was being able to come to Addaction and the support that I have received here," said Reagan.

"Ever since I've started, I've felt like I've actually had real support. People are so kind and they will talk to you, and listen and not judge. That's why it's helped me because they make me feel like a human. You certainly lose your humanity when you're going through addiction. You forget to eat, you forget to take care of yourself.

"What a lot of people don't know about addiction is that most people do drugs because they've had bad things happen to them and they're trying to block it out. There's usually a reason why. Just like when I did it, I was trying to block out how I felt.

"Some people don't want to stop, even when they're losing limbs. It's awful to see because you know that they are hurting themselves but it's their choice. I think everybody either gets to the point where they decide to stop, or they overdose.

"If I can, I want to help people stop. I want to be able to end the grief, of families losing their loved ones, their sons and daughters. I want to use my experiences to help people."

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Reagan recently took part in an art exhibition as part of a joint project between Addaction and the University of Lincoln that gave Addaction clients and students the opportunity to work together to produce personal works of art.

"One of my pieces was of a woman falling into a rotten apple which was a metaphor for falling into addiction," she said. You're in there and it feels like a lifetime but eventually the bad stuff does rot away. It represents how I felt and how I feel about addiction.

"It was definitely a relief to be open and honest about my experiences. I was nervous at first about whether people would judge me once they'd seen me but I was proud of myself for putting myself out there.

"I did a piece called grey area, where I put a black canvas at one side of the wall and a white canvas on the other side and got people to stand in the middle. It's meant to symbolise that life is not black and white. There are grey areas."

(Image: Reagan Bescoby)

Reagan is now hoping to become a recovery champion for Addaction, an accolade you achieve after staying clean for a long period of time, and wants to set up a charity newsletter to tell the real stories of the people who work for and use Addaction.